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So this is an odd occurrence of having two posts in one week, but I have been solo in the apartment with some LOUD music playing, and it reminded me of a great game my brother and I used to play…this was something I turned in to class. And try out Dylan’s “Changing of the Guards”…its awesome.

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Changing of the Guards

The music fades in and Bob Dylan’s voice sings: “Sixteen Years”

I stand with my hands locked in a grasp behind me and my hips thrusting outward as my brother, Will, stands before me with a tennis ball in his hand and his arm cocked back in a ready to throw position.

Three women echo him: “Sixteen Years!”

His forearm rolls forward and his fingers release the ball and it flies through the air towards me in a stretched out parabola as my face winces in horror. It hits me in my chest and drops to the ground. I reach down, grab it, cock my arm back and see Will with his arms behind him and in the same position I had occupied.

“Over the fields,” Dylan sings now.

The women echo him again, “Over the fields!”

It is now me throwing the ball at my brother, it is a lob, but let there be no lie about it, we are trying to hurt one another.

It happens every time “Changing of the Guards” comes on.

The rules are simple: Every time the women sing we get to try to hit the other in the genitalia with a tennis ball from a respectable distance. We take turns throwing the ball back and forth. Up until the saxophone solo, or a time we refer to as “chaos,” when the ball is thrown back at your opponent at any point you have it. With approximately 30 moments where the women sing and five sax solos that can result in up to five throws each solo, we are throwing a ball at each other 40 times in the seven minute song. The game ends when someone quits, which is usually when they have been struck.